A bit on sound files and then an issue with game integrity on another post.
Maybe all this has been mentioned over the years. Not sure. Hvn'e had time to search and research topics or spend too much time in here at all. But some fun stuff and other stuff has happened for me recently and I thought I would comment on all of it after downloading some sound files.
I’ve been playing since AH Beta, was that in 98-99? On and off and I love this game. I used to play Fighter Ace too for years at the same time. There are soooooo many ways this game is superior to FA.
I am re-experiencing both Mitsu's and Rangers sound files. There used to be a Wabbit or something years ago. Not sure about that one. I never got that to work. Maybe there are others still I just don’t know.
Each are a fantastic contribution to the game. In a GV, out on the battlefield, these sounds propel you to imagine you are listening to the sounds of war. Not heard any files that provide incoming mortar or shells overhead through the air. But like skuzzy says, can’t do too much or you sap out processing speed.
These are just observations and not complaints. There is a lot of time and hard work to create these files. I know I tired one time. Way over my head.
One wind sound on both packages cannot be realistic for high speeds, and that is when it is programmed to run in aircraft at high speed. It isn’t at all realistic, that is, unless you are in the desert plains of New Mexico, out on your porch, having the wind whistle thru a screen door. When this sound is in effect, I look out the cockpit expecting to see tumbleweeds stuck in my flaps. I look around to see if a brush rake is behind the seat!
Ranger's massive tank report completely excavates every vowel responsible for any blast, concussion, maybe even this combo: All USS New Jersey’s heavy guns reportingat once, an erupting volcano, hit by a 250 ft tidal tsunami and a 125,000 mph 5 mile-wide comet devastation hurtling in from the Oort belt. This is Big Country sounds!! The receding projectile's shock waves are seemingly buried in this omnipresent cumulative blast and then regurgitated as rebounding from a canyon walls surrounding you and the entire planet. It is almost too much as if a few thunder claps are merged with each detonation too. Dramatic and that is fun & I like it. I laugh every time I have loosed this massive drama to erupt at just a pull of a trigger.
Each tank having some unique sound, something different is good too. That way you can identify what is in the woods or approaching or near you that you cannot see because you are waiting in scout mode or ambush. This means you can decide to flank or maneuver if you are in an M8. If you simply cannot know what the nme vehicle is when all GV's sound the same. In the default sounds you venture to appear head to head suddenly with the M4 which sounds like all the others and it’s 25 ft thick chabum frontal armor, and get a quick trip back to your tower.
Ranger's jet engine sound is completely a duplication of what jet aircraft sound like from outside and watching/experiencing them from the ground. The wave shifting and flanged waft of varying densities of atmosphere handling and presenting the sound is the primary evidence. The jet roar is from aspects that only can be heard from outside and mostly to the rear of jet aircraft. It is a military jet sound though. It doesn’t sound like EPA commercial jets. It’s that it just doesn't sound like that in the cockpit as a pilot. But it is dam fun to hear, like being at a military air show as a spectator.
There is really nothing most of us would recognize about hearing and feeling a jet sound from within as a fighter pilot. Resonate electro-pump & servo hums and constant engine turbine whines in a fighter. But only a lot of wind if you're way up front if in something like a air liner or transport having engines far to the rear.
The reality is that most internal sounds of WW2 aircraft are grinding and unpleasant. Some of the sound files do reflect that. To me, if it were ever possible, a high fidelity mike suspended in a few of these remaining vintage aircraft would be the challenge. Having the physics modeled accurately is what we always demand. Sometimes the sound lacks that and it would take Hollywood production $ to get the authentic sounds. For now, some of the sounds are just created with such added flavor and embellishment fitting familiar stereotypes of sound from the ground observance experience, but shouldn't be confused with realism inside the cockpit.
I am trying to fuse the 2 packages really. They are really brilliant and do so much for the "game feel", emersion and the fantasy, and that is what it's all about.
It would be interesting for kicks to change all sounds to those of nature. Birds for the planes, lion's roars for tanks, some suitable animal for each craft. Maybe the P51 could sound like a galloping pony. No bedroom moans please.
I spose there should be cries and horrific screams when you strafe a gunnery position, killing troops scrambling to the map room or wound a GV. We get "Geronimo" now but that is as close as they venture. This might transfer the game into an X rated version, maybe there should be servers or maps devoted to this for those of us really looking for realism, something different?
I’m in favor of NO NEON ICONS, or a room that is fixed that way. You learn to communicate with others where you are or you get a an un-penalized fratricide, no “kill shooter”. Your target dies. If you do that in a detectable or malicious way (events or incidents per minute or hour) you get booted or banned, that is if your buddies don't avenge you first. You apologize and make amends in a believable way or you’re ostracized.
I really don’t like aircraft seeing brilliant neon signage over my GV even while I'm tucked under dense forest or inside mountain tunnels (like we have any yet). You man-up and get close enough to identify the bogy, he becomes obvious, either bandit or friendly, or you wimp and stay away. It changes things.
Missions could have special invasion striping or tail colors. If you don’t have that, then get out of the area and get the right paint back at the re-arm pad. GV’s can have “V”s or other contrived nationality signage. That’s the way it is. With open plane sets like AH has, you can no longer differentiate friendly by aircraft type attributed only by nationality as it was. Yes I know of allied pilots who stole nme aircraft, but that was for escape with no rampaging of nme airfields.
Maybe some utility aircraft or all the hanger inventory should be left out in forest enclaves, hangers or revetments. You walk up to it you get it by climbing in. It gets damaged and too bad. This kind of modeling would work for special events or scenarios. The planes are stored out there in the woods and hangers or lined up on the field. You get an air raid alert then you scramble like hell to get them up or loose them. They regenerate perhaps like hangers do now. We know that strafing a plane disables it as well as bombing a hanger. Up the lethality of the AA then around a field.
A flag & insignia should be on the plane's wings and tail, either Knight, Rook, or Bishop. Your wing should tell you or by radio and your teammates need to learn to be specific who’s in the area, like real war...angels 5 bearing 34 etc. Either we can hide or not, but the neon Broadway advertising over all cons is getting dated sometimes. A directional radio tone or squawk can be generated or requested periodically for close proximity friendlies. You "check6" a guy and it doesn't respond, maybe he's a bandit?
You want intel, then chute or infiltrate an area on foot behind the lines. You should be able to turn off the engine and exit a GV on foot and do that, and be able to return using no betraying engine sounds. Maybe your footsteps or BO gives you away with an AI dog patrol. Your radio might be detectable to the nme just like it was in WW2. You should be able to crawl thru the woods and see if a suspected tank is nme or not, return and use tactics based upon that intel you got for yourowndamself. Of course, if you get caught, squashed and ran over, chased or shot by a Lugar or Colt 45, then that’s part of the game. I don’t see any of this as adding load to the game engine but I’m not a designer either. What if you dropped a grenade inside a tank? Smeared its driver’s window?
